Hungary’s President Could Resign over University Doctorate Plagiarism
Hungarian President Pal Schmitt cancelled all his engagements Friday, the news agency MTI reported, amid speculation he could resign after he was stripped of his university doctorate.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a close ally of Schmitt, told public radio that the president alone must decide whether he should resign from the largely ceremonial post after he was accused of plagiarism.
"Nobody except him can decide," Orban said his first reaction to the scandal.
Schmitt was stripped of his 1992 doctorate title Thursday after Budapest's Semmelweis University found he had copied "word-for-word" large passages of another writer's work in his thesis on the history of the Olympic Games.
Opposition parties have called on Schmitt to resign.
"He must go because he has become unworthy of the post of president," said Socialist party leader Attila Mesterhazy.
Schmitt returned on Thursday from a trip to South Korea but dodged journalists waiting for him at the airport.
An investigative committee from Semmelweis University said Schmitt had copied large parts of his thesis but ruled that the text complied with requirements at the time and put the blame on the university for not noticing.
Nevertheless, the university's senate decided to strip him of his doctorate.
Last year, German defense minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg resigned after his doctorate was rescinded for plagiarism, leading to scrutiny of the academic achievements of other public figures.
Source: Agence France Presse
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